In the 1960s pop was a young person’s business. But today age is no barrier to success. The Rolling Stones are still touring in

admin2014-10-24  43

问题     In the 1960s pop was a young person’s business. But today age is no barrier to success. The Rolling Stones are still touring in their 60s. Bob Dylan’s songwriting skills have survived intact. Sir Paul McCartney warbles on.
    It is time to do for enterprise what such ageing rockers have done for pop music: explode the myth that it is a monopoly of the young. This idea has been powerfully reinforced by the latest tech boom: Facebook, Google and Groupon were all founded by people in their 20s or teens. Mark Zuckerberg, aged 27, will soon be able to count his years on earth in billions of dollars.
    Research suggests that age may in fact be an advantage for entrepreneurs. Vivek Wadhwa of Singularity University in California studied more than 500 American high-tech and engineering companies with more than $ lm in sales. He discovered that the average age of the founders of successful American technology businesses is 39. There were twice as many successful founders over 50 as under 25, and twice as many over 60 as under 20.
    Experience continues to count for a great deal, in business as in other walks of life—or, to borrow a phrase from P. J. O’Rourke, age and guile can still beat "youth, innocence and a bad haircut". It is one thing to invent a clever new product but quite another to hire employees or build a sales machine.
    And even when it comes to breakthrough ideas, age may still be an asset. Benjamin Jones of Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and Bruce Weinberg of Ohio State University examined the careers of Nobel Prizewinners in chemistry, physics and medicine. They found that the average age at which these stars made their greatest innovations is now higher than it was a century ago.
    This is not to say that the rise of young entrepreneurs like Mr. Zuckerberg is insignificant. The barriers that once discouraged enterprise among the young are collapsing. Social networks make it easier to build contacts. Knowledge-intensive industries require relatively little capital. But the fact that barriers are collapsing for the young does not mean that they are being erected for greybeards. The point is that the creation of fast-growing businesses is now open to everybody regardless of age.
    The evidence that older people are if anything becoming more enterprising should help to calm two of the biggest worries that hang over the West. One is that the greying of the population will inevitably produce economic sluggishness. The second is that older people will face hard times as companies shed older workers in the name of efficiency and welfare states cut back on their pensions.
The purpose for the author to write this article seems to______.

选项 A、encourage the old people to enrich their later life
B、attract more venture capitals for the projects schemed by the old
C、reverse a culture obsessed with youth while neglecting the old
D、ease the widespread concern over aging process in Western countries

答案D

解析 本文通篇都在探讨老年人的创造力这一话题,作者的写作目的是否只停留在褒扬之上呢?似乎不是,文章最后一段作者的写作意图浮出水面。在老龄化现象日益严重的今天,人们对于老龄化问题存在普遍的担忧。担忧主要有两点:一是担心人口的老龄化将必然造成经济停滞。二是担心如果公司以提高效率的名义辞退老员工,并且福利型国家削减退休金的话,年长者将会面临艰苦的生活。因此作者在文中褒扬老年人的创造力是为了平息人们对于老龄化社会的担忧。本题的正确答案应该选[D]。
转载请注明原文地址:https://jikaoti.com/ti/9dMRFFFM
0

最新回复(0)